A Golden Journey

Nome della scuola:

H-International School Rosà

Docenti responsabili:

Kate Taylor

Altri docenti partecipanti:

Leigh Bridge, Richard Turner, Maddalena Pellacani

Numero di studenti coinvolti:

26

Premessa

This year our Guggenheim project flowed alongside the classroom Units of Inquiry. Throughout the first unit we worked with a cross curricular program with a strong Egyptian focus.

We also connected to our Civic Education programme using Venice as our stimulus. We looked at Venice as being unique ENVIRONMENTALLY, ARCHITECTURALLY and HISTORICALLY and the challenges of conservation, not only of the landmarks and monuments, but also of the city itself, as rising water levels and subsidence of the land upon which Venice is built are threatened.

As always our major aim was to provide a stimulating and engaging programme which allowed every individual student the opportunity to explore and develop his/ her own ideas.

-  Encourage curiosity, critical thinking and ongoing collaborative investigation.

-  We learnt to experiment with techniques involved with each art medium, children created their own individual work using a variety of skills and materials. Unfortunately this year due to the Covid situation we were unable to work in groups. We therefore took up the challenge to consider how we could join our individual work into a collaborative whole which we achieved by a walk through gallery of our work set up in the hall used by the whole school.

Metodologia

- The children made pencil drawings and constructed a 3D replica of their chosen landmark.

- Manipulation of materials such as wire, paper,card and tape.

Nodi tematici

Art and Architecture: Study of famous Venice Landmarks – St Marks Basilica, Dodge’s Palace, Bridge of Sighs, Rialto Bridge, Ca’d’Oro, Guggenheim museum.The children made pencil drawings and constructed a 3D replica of their chosen landmark.

The pencil drawings were then edited in Keynote to create a colour filled modern art image .
We had great fun transferring our art work into ARMakr to create a virtual tour of Venice using the children’s images.

Maps of Venice and the six Sestieri were completed in this unit to give the students a strong idea of the geography of the city.

Brancusi:  Armature - Inspired by Brancusi’s Maiastra and Bird in Space we explored how combinations of materials such as wire, paper,card and tape can be transformed into sculpture . We discovered how best to manipulate them (cut, fold, tear, bend) and fasten them together . (tie, bind, stick). This part of the project ran alongside our Egyptian project where we were studying Egyptian sculpture.

Egypt and the Klimt connection: We travelled back in time to Ancient Egypt to look at the influences of symbolism throughout the ages .

Egyptian Gods and symbolism:

- Charcoal studies

- Metal sheet embossing

- Hieroglyphics

Klimt and the “Golden Period”: In this unit we related Civic education with connections to Italy. We looked at the influence of Ravenna’s Church of San Vitale and its Byzantine mosaics.

The Kiss:  Rodin / Brancusi sculpture. Klimt painting with gold leaf.
The children were encouraged to consider interpretation of art works. How we are influenced by ideas from many centuries. We made the connection between the Guggenheims Migrating Objects exhibition and the influence of African art on artists like Constantin Brancusi

Our final unit was Jewellery for Peggy: Having studied the daily lives of Egyptian people in their English class work and the life of Peggy in Italian, we worked with our digital coach using a 3d drawing app to design modern day jewellery for Peggy. Once the designs were created they were realised on the 3D printer and then painted. The children loved individualising their pieces adding wires, beads and threads to create the finished piece.

Each child designed their own golden silhouette box to display their work which was then displayed in the gallery.

We looked at the American designer Sonia Boyajian who was inspired to make her own collection having seen Peggy’s jewellery .